Dismantling the patriarchy…one drink at a time!

Mountains of Ice*

*Recent ruminations from LUPEC Boston as originally published in the Weekly Dig.

by Pink Lady

Did you know that ice is an American invention? Well, kind of. No one can claim ownership of frozen water, of course, but dropping a cube of it into beverages on a hot summer day was not such an easy luxury in the days before refrigeration. We can thank Frederic Tudor’s Yankee ingenuity for exporting the wonders of the ice-cold beverage to warmer regions of the world.

A well-to-do Bostonian, Tudor dropped out of school at Boston Latin at age 13, spurning a college education at Harvard to pursue fortune in his own inventions. As the story goes, Tudor discovered his calling at 17 while seeking a cold beverage in Cuba without success. He decided then and there to create a business out of “harvesting ice” from the local New England ponds that freeze so solidly each winter.

Tudor’s idea was at first met with ridicule but eventually grew into an empire. He sourced ice from familiar spots like Walden and Fresh Pond and shipped it around the world to Europe, the Caribbean, and even to the British East India Company in Calcutta. Tudor became known as Boston’s Ice King and died in 1864 a wealthy man. He even created an offshoot industry for Maine’s sawmills by insulating his precious cargo with the sawdust they’d previously thrown away.

Let’s raise a glass to Tudor as the holidays – and the many parties that ensue – approach. Several weeks ago, we LUPEC ladies got our hands on a special, modern invention that has satiated our high volume ice needs, the NewAir AI-100SS countertop ice maker from Air & Water. The kind folks in the marketing department offered us a chance to put this toy to the test. We’ve done so at several cocktail parties and found the machine to be true to its promise: it can make up to 35 pounds of ice per day and the first batch of ice cubes are complete in 15 minutes. Set-up and clean-up is delightfully facilement.

You may rarely have need for 35 pounds of ice, and equally little use for the urn you bought that offers coffee service for 45. But if you do enjoy entertaining, or simply enjoy being totally prepared every single time you do, this kitchen gadget may be just the thing for you.